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“He took everything from me, Jake, everything but my life. And look.” She spread her hands. “Not even two years later, I’m okay. More than okay. I have a home, family, a man who loves me. I have a good job, a good life. I have friends. He’s the one who lost. He’s the one who’s running and desperate. Killing me quick won’t make up for that. It’s personal.”
As the doorbell sounded, she automatically pulled out her phone to check. “It’s… flower delivery. It’s…”
She passed the phone to Jake.
His eyes went cool before he rose. “I’ll deal with it.”
It took her a moment to gather herself and follow him. She knew a funeral wreath when she saw one. At the door while Jake questioned the stunned delivery woman, Morgan studied the wreath and its message.
Morgan, always remember.
She would, she thought. She would always remember.
Because he knew changing the plates wouldn’t be enough, Rozwell bought a paint sprayer, some pea-green paint, and on a stretch of desert road, coated the blue of Jane’s truck.
It looked like shit, and he had to spend time wiping paint off the head- and taillights, but his ride no longer matched the description.
He figured it would hold for a while, especially given the yahoo cops in this part of the world.
He couldn’t risk motels, no matter how crap worthy, so drove straight through, into Utah, drove from day into night, fueled by rage and fear, and caffeine and carbs.
Time to reestablish good habits, he decided, so drove to the airport in Salt Lake to take a much-needed nap in long-term parking.
He woke, hot and miserable, before dawn, but decided his luck was back in when he spotted a minivan, complete with aBABY ON BOARDsign, that must’ve parked while he’d taken his siesta.
Easily fifteen years old, he estimated, but whistle clean.
It took him more than a half hour, but he got in, disabled the alarm, got it started—hadn’t lost his touch!—and transferred everything from the truck to the van.
It had two hundred thousand miles on it, but it would do the job, get him into Colorado, a halfway decent motel—not hotels yet, he warned himself.
A hot shower, time to groom, eat, sleep, and map out the best route to Morgan.
With Miles, Morgan closed the bar on Friday night.
“Beck called me a few hours ago.”
He stopped what he was doing. “And you’re just telling me?”
“We were busy; you were busy. And now’s as good as then. A security guard spotted the truck he was driving in long-term parking, Salt Lake City airport. He’d tried spray-painting it, but the blue bled through. It took them some time to identify what he’d taken from there. A red minivan. A Kia, I think she said. He’d covered a lot of distance, but they tracked where he’d stayed at a Days Inn, in Colorado.”
“Why don’t we sit down?”
“No, I’m good. I’m good. He dumped the van in a Walmart parking lot in South Dakota. He carjacked an SUV, at gunpoint, tied the owner—a sixty-year-old woman—with bungee cords, gagged her, shoved her into the van. He knocked her unconscious, gave her a concussion, but he didn’t kill her. That’s something.
“They’re following up what Agent Beck says is a very credible sighting in Minnesota, and she doesn’t think he’ll keep the SUV long, doesn’t believe he’ll risk trying for any of his contacts to trade it. They’ve got the airport in Minneapolis on alert.”
“Is that it?”
“That’s it for now.”
“Morgan.” He took her hand, the one that wore his ring. “This means something.”
“It means everything.”
“And busy doesn’t,” he added. “When they tell you anything about this son of a bitch, I know about it. Not after busy. I know about it. No wait time allowed. Just like you text me every night you’re not with me when you get home. Like that, this isn’t negotiable.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
